Visitor's Hours
by samaryley
Summary: Dallas gets a surprise visit from a friend while in the hospital. Rated T because...uh, he's Dallas Winston, and he has a little bit of an anger problem. One-Shot. Happy Good Fic Day!


**A/N: It's a good thing Dallas dies not long after this scene, because if he didn't, I would have had to kill him myself for being so difficult to write. What was I thinking? Dallas in first? Oi.**

**I own neither Tim nor Dallas. S.E. Hinton does. And I have learned to accept that.  
**

…………………….

There was nothing about the situation that was tough, not _one fucking thing_.

They wanted me to wear a fucking _gown_, there was always a fucking _nurse_ trying to tell me what I could or couldn't do, and I was stuck in a room where I couldn't even have a fucking _smoke_… Everything about the place was bullshit. I wanted _out_, and I intended to _get _out as soon as possible.

I lay back on the bed, arching my back, taking advantage of the halfway decent mattress. I fully extended my spine - cracking it, then feeling each bone settle begrudgingly back into place. If nothing else, at least the fucking bed was more comfortable than the places I usually crashed- the piss-poor excuses for mattresses at Bucks, or the ratty old couch at Darry's. I allowed myself to sink down into the mattress and feel almost comfortable.

Still, though, a decent mattress wasn't worth putting up with the shit that went on around the place – the doctors talking down to you like you were dirt, the people coming in to poke and prod at you every ten minutes… I was itching to get out of the place something fierce. Hell, it was less humiliating to be in _jail_ than in the goddamned hospital. At least, in jail, everyone treated you with the respect you deserved- they knew that you'd _earned_ your way in there. In the hospital, all you got was pity. People treated you like you were sick, like you were weak, helpless, and _pathetic_. It made me want to reach up and grab those smartass doctors and nurses by their goddamned throats and squeeze. Hard. I think they knew it, too, because after the first few hours, most of them knew enough to stay the hell away from me.

I don't need that shit. I don't need their goddamned pity.

Then there's that one annoyingly persistent nurse who just _won't_ go away. She acts like she ain't scared of me, but I know she is. Last time she came in I took off my gown and threw it at her, just to piss her off. I gotta admit, she _is_ kinda cute.

What really pisses _me _off, though, is this: Why don't these hospital people, if they're all supposed to be so fucking smart, take all the energy and brains they're wasting on me, asking me every other damned secondwhat I need and how I feel, and take it on down the hall and do something fucking _worthwhile_- make _Johnny_ better. Now_ there's_ a hood who actually _needs_ them - who _deserves_ their fucking pity, so why the hell don't they stop wasting their energy on me, and get their goddamned genius doctor asses down there and save somebody who _needs_ saving, and leave _me_ the hell alone.

_I'm_ fine. I'm _fucking fine_.

I closed my eyes and ground my head back into the pillow, rubbing the inside corners of my eyes with my thumb and index finger, willing away the headache that had been steadily rising into my temples. I pressed hard enough that colors appeared, fireworks glowing bright against the insides of my eyelids. I watched them explode- a nice visual display to match the explosive feelings developing within my own mind. I willed that anger up to the forefront, with satisfaction, feeling it growing; smoldering. That's right, baby, I thought, burn…_burn_. I let the anger burn in me the same way that fucking church had burned, right down to nothing.

I wanted to fucking kill someone. Anyone. Anyone that I could somehow hold responsible for the fact that Johnny lay dying just a few doors down. _Dying_. The kid was fucking _dying_. Jesus Christ.

I lingered there, pressing against my eyelids, relieving the pain there, but letting the anger continue to well up, filling every inch of my body until it threatened to boil over. God help the nurse that dared to mess with me next.

"Well, what the fuck do we have _here_, then?" I knew that voice.

I opened my eyes. Shepard. Well, wasn't this just fucking _perfect_.

"Heard you were laid up," he said, pulling a chair over and straddling it, backwards. "I thought it'd take more than a little ol' church barbecue to get the best of Dallas Winston," he said, obnoxiously.

"Fuck you, Shepard," I said. I knew there was no way in hell he would have ever had the balls to run into that church to get Johnny; hell, he wouldn't even have gone in after his own brother, I was willing to bet. He had no idea about why I did it. But I wasn't going to play that card; he'd make it out to be a weakness, make _me_ out to be the fool for being stupid enough to put myself out there to save somebody else. That wasn't how we supposedly operated, me and Shepard. We took care of _ourselves_ first, everybody else second. He'd never know that I would have died to save Johnny in that church, had it come to that; that I would have traded places with him even right then and lay dying down the hall instead of him, if I could have.

"So what's with this hero business, Dallas?" he asked. "You turnin' all pansy on me, all of a sudden? What's next, you gonna start helping grannies cross the street?"

"Keep dreamin', asshole," I said. "You're just jealous that I got _my_ record in the paper and _you_ ain't got shit." One of the nurses had shown me the newspaper, and I had to admit, it was pretty tuff. It was all there, every law I'd ever broken. Been _caught_ breaking, I mean. There it was: my reputation, spelled out right there, in black and white, for everyone to see.

"Yeah, well, I expected to see _Wanted: Dead or Alive_ under your ugly mug. I never figured you for the baby-rescuer type, Winston. I thought you hated kids, anyway."

"Yeah, well maybe you're not as fuckin' smart as you think you are, then." I could feel the anger rising, and I forced it back down. I wasn't gonna lose my cool right there, in front of him. Not over that.

"So, what's your sentence in here?" he asked. "When do you get out?"

"Whenever _I decide_ I do," I said, looking at him. His eyes had always pissed me off- they never showed any emotion. I could feel the rage in my own, burning bright, and it bothered me, knowing he'd be able to read me so easily. I looked away, pretending to see something outside the window.

"Well, then, I'm here to personally deliver an invitation," he said, "to join me and a few of my closest Greaser friends in giving those bastard Socs just exactly what they deserve."

I felt a feeling of satisfaction building in me, starting in the pit of my stomach and rising. Despite myself, I felt the hint of a smile appearing on my face and, eventually, a change from the rage that I had felt previously showing in my eyes to a more acceptable display of nothing more than keen interest. I stared at him confidently this time.

"So…tell me what's to know," I said, willing the rage into storage for possible later use.

"Tonight. Socs against Greasers. Payback for the shit they pulled in the park with the Curtis kid and his little sidekick."

I resisted snapping at him, though I wanted to. He has a fucking _name_, I wanted to yell. He's not just a goddamned nobody. _Johnny_, I thought, his name is Johnny Cade, asshole! I wanted to stand up for him, to make Tim realize that he was more than just some stupid kid, but I didn't say anything. None of that was really anything I wanted Tim Shepard to know I was thinking.

That's how it was, with Shepard and me. It was a game: both of us revealing only what worked to our advantage, building up our reputations as nothing short of unfeeling hardasses, and hiding whatever we felt might detract from that perception. It was a simple game, but we played it ferociously, carefully choosing what we wanted to put out there, and guarding viciously that which we kept hidden, unbeknownst to anyone but ourselves. This game we played for keeps.

"No weapons," he added.

"What, the big time's suddenly afraid of a few chains and blades? They gonna take off all their fuckin' rings, then?" I could never get past how those rings had hurt Johnny - how they'd scarred him, for life. Anything can be a weapon, if you know how to use it- I knew that for damned sure.

Just then the door opened and a nurse came in. Jesus, don't they even fucking knock?

"What?" I barked at her, though it was obvious that she was there to give me some sort of pill- she had the telltale little white cup and some water.

"Antibiotics. So you don't get an infection from the burns."

"I don't need that shit," I said, sneaking a look down her cleavage as she leaned over. _Not too bad_, I thought. Yeah, she was pretty cute. It had been awhile, since Sylvia and I were on the outs ever since I'd gotten out of jail… I had a few fleeting thoughts right then about how things would go, after I tore off her nurse's uniform and pulled her down on top of me, sucking on her neck… I was glad to have a sheet over me, what with Shepard sittin' right there, and all. Under the sheet, I was naked, except for my underwear, since I had tossed the hospital gown at her the last time she had dared come in. I rolled over onto my side.

"Well, Dr. Nolan says you do. Open up."

It was clear she wasn't going to go away until I took the fucking pill, so I put it in my mouth and downed a huge gulp of water, swallowing exaggeratedly.

"You need anything else?" she asked.

"Not unless you want to take off that uniform and join me in bed for a little fun," I suggested dryly. Tim chuckled.

She just gave a "tsk" kind of sound, shook her head, and disappeared. I leaned over and spit out the pill into the bedpan, with enough force that it made a satisfying _plink_ sound as it hit against the stainless steel.

I turned back to face Tim.

"So where's this rumble at?" I asked.

"Your lot."

"I'll be there. Count on it."

This was it - my chance to make somebody pay. I didn't care if I had to bust my way through a whole fucking ward of nurses and doctors- I was going. There was no way I wasn't going to show. Not only to get some justice for Johnny for all the shit he'd had to put up with, but just as much to show Shepard that I go _where_ I want, _when_ I want, and I couldn't care less what any bigshot doctor had to say about it.

"You know I take you at your word, Dal. You say you'll be there, I believe it. All I'm sayin' is, don't fucking bother if you ain't gonna be no use to us."

"You ever know me to not pull my weight in a rumble?"

"No, but… just don't get your sorry ass _killed_ for the sake of your reputation. 'Cause that ain't gonna do nobody no good."

"Yeah, well, somebody _might_ get their ass killed, but it sure as hell ain't gonna be _me_," I said. There was no way any Soc was gonna kill me. _No_ _fucking_ _way_.

Tim got up, pushing the chair back up against the wall.

"Good luck with the nurse," he said, winking, on his way out. Shit, I guess he _had_ noticed. "Guess I'll see you tonight."

I didn't bother to answer. I would be at that rumble. I was already stepping aside and letting my anger take the driver's seat on the way there.

_Somebody_ was gonna pay.


End file.
